Jorge Paulo Lemann (born August 26, 1939)[7] is a Swiss-Brazilian banker. He is ranked as the 26th richest person in the world by Bloomberg Billionaire Index, with an estimated net worth of US$25 billion as of February 2015[update][5] and is Brazil's richest man.[8] As of 2013[update], Forbes Brazil listed Lemann as the top entry for the Richest Brazilians list.[9]

In 1971 he and three partners founded the Brazilian investment banking firm Banco Garantia. Undaunted by a horrific market crash that came only weeks later, Lemann was eventually able to build Garantia into one of the country's most prestigious and innovative investment banks, described in Forbes as "a Brazilian version of Goldman Sachs."

Later he and his partners, who founded private equity company GP Investimentos,[1] bought control of two Brazilian breweries (Brahma and Antarctica) that became AmBev. In 2003 AmBev had a pretax profit margin of 35 percent on sales of US$ 2.7 billion. It controlled 65 percent of the Brazilian beer market and almost 80 percent of Argentina's, with monopoly positions in Paraguay, Uruguay, and Bolivia.[10]

AmBev merged with Interbrew of Belgium in August 2004. The stock of the combined firm, InBev, rose 40 percent during 2005.

InBev then announced it would buy the American brewer Anheuser-Busch in 2008 for $46 billion in a highly controversial deal, making it the world's largest brewer, Anheuser-Busch Inbev (abbreviated as AB Inbev) and merger of Kraft Foods]] securing Lemann's status as one of the new "Kings" of beer.[11]

A onetime tennis champion (he played for both the Swiss and Brazil Davis Cup teams,[1][12] gained titles in Brazil, and even played at Wimbledon), Lemann still actively invests in Brazil with former Banco Garantia partners - and fellow billionaires - Marcel Herrmann Telles and Carlos Alberto Sicupira. All three now help to control AB Inbev as members of its board of directors.

He previously served as a member of the board of directors of Brahma from 1990 to 2001.[16] Lemann currently serves on the Board of Directors of Endeavor Brazil office. Endeavor is an international non-profit development organization that finds and supports high-impact entrepreneurs in emerging markets.